


Wait Until Baerlon

by aptasi



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Attraction, Awkward Conversations, F/M, Humor, Implied Casual Sex, Implied Sexual Content, bond triangle, protective warder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28738572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aptasi/pseuds/aptasi
Summary: Lan decides it's his job to have the protective talk with Thom about Moiraine.
Relationships: Moiraine Damodred & Lan Mandragoran, Moiraine Damodred/Thom Merrilin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	Wait Until Baerlon

**Author's Note:**

> Rating is for sexual references/humor.

The camp was silent, all asleep except for the two men on watch, staring into the woods. This was the first time Thom and Lan had done watch at the same time alone. Usually it was one of them mentoring the boys.

There was a little bit of insect noise, a good sign.

"Wait until Baerlon to take her to bed." Lan said abruptly. 

Excuse me" Thom sputtered. 

"She's too fatigued right now. Wait until we get to the city."

"What?" His voice was still too high. 

"Moiraine."

"I assure you, Warder, you have me all wrong."

Lan snorted. 

Thom shook his head. Yes he thought Moiraine was beautiful, and yes he found her wit enticing but it wasn't as if he was just going to tickle her behind the nearest tree. Or leave her with a belly. She was an Aes Sedai, for the love of light. Just how much of a light blinded fool did the man think he was? "We are just flirting. I flirt." He didn't even think he had flirted that much really especially in ways a non-courtier would notice but apparently he had been clear enough.

"Heh."

"And what a bloody thing to say. Why not tell me to back away altogether then? I thought a Warder was like a husband, so what are you suggesting I tumble the woman for?

"More of an older brother currently." Lan said. "The old tongue calls us..."

"I know what it calls you." Thom snapped. "If a man came to me and offered me his sister in this fashion, I would be horrified." 

Lan made a grunting noise. "I am offering you nothing, merely saying what you plan to do can wait until Baerlon."

"I am not planning to seduce Moiraine!".

"You trying to wake the children with that shouting, Gleeman?"

Thom clenched his jaw and humphed into his mustache. Two could play the gruff vocalizations. 

"It had best go without saying." Lan added. "That if you damage her in the process, I'll break you."

Well yes it definitely did. "Your line is if you hurt her, I'll break you." Thom muttered grouchily "Not damage. She's not a piece of equipment."

"Hurt her..." Lan said with a detectable bitterness. "Walking across the camp hurts her, Gleeman, am I to break the ground?"

Thom shuddered. " I don't know what her taste in men is usually."

"Heh, bad.'

"But I just care about how she's feeling, like you."

Lan glared at him with eyes that would crucify most men cold. "Moiraine Sedai is not Green, Gleeman. She will have sport with you or she won't, but you are not her Warder. Do not interfere with my tasks."

"So no one but you is allowed to care for her well-being."

"Do not twist my words."

That's her job, isn't it?" Thom said. 

Lan had the nerve to take an audible breath as though Thom were the one trying his patience. "I assume I don't have to instruct a man like you in how to make it gratifying for the woman."

"Bloody ashes, man." 

Lan actually shrugged. "Just do not be too kind to her"

"What?"

"Not cruel just not too kind. Moiraine Sedai does not know how to process too much kindness. She will misunderstand you."

Thom frowned. 

"Be plain about it. Bodies have needs. No poetry or singing to her or," his eyebrow twitched, "affectionately anything."

"So do not make her fall in love with me. Can't break her heart if I never have it?"

Lan grunted. 

"And if I fall in love with her?" The words came out without thought, and he instantly regretted

The Warder glared. "Pine." He ordered. "Alone."

Thom had no bloody intention of letting himself get that kind of entwined with Moiraine, but something about the Borderlander telling him he couldn't just threw him right out of tune. "I am sure all Gaidin are protective of their Aes Sedai, Lan, but this is one odd version of it.

Moiraine is special." Lan said. 

"All women are, in their way."

Moiraine more so than most.

"She is not all women. She is going to strike a great blow against the Dark One, make everything worth it."

"Everything?"

The Warder shook his head.

"So you're telling me I should use Moiraine, a woman who you are emotionally and metaphysically bonded to and who you think is going to save the world, have her for a quick tumble and then leave her. Do you see what an absurd thing this is to say about a woman that you put on that kind of pedestal?"

"What I am saying, Gleeman, is to not deceive her regarding what you're about." Lan rumbled. 

"I am not going to do that."

"How many of the women you've had to bed in the last five years have you stayed with longer than a week?"

That was bloody unfair. "Same answer as you, probably."

Lan's face twisted, so momentarily Lan almost missed it. "She's not… fragile about that. So long as you don't make her hope for more."

Well hope was in short supply for everyone. He hardly had enough of the stuff to be pawning it off on an Aes Sedai. 

"Moiraine is a woman and Aes Sedai besides. She is the only one with a say in whom she beds. It is sentimentality I am forbidding."

Lan looked Malkieri and that bit certainly sounded it. Another piece of the puzzle. Or pattern to borrow Moiraine's symbolic affectation. "She doesn't know you're saying this to me does she?"

Lan raised an eyebrow. 

Thom folded his arms. 

"Moiraine Sedai knows that men notice she's traveling with a man. She knows that it requires explanation what they can and cannot be to her." 

"Sounds awkward."

"Being a Warder can be."

Warder... Thom had been racking his brain the whole conversation trying to figure out what he did to give his attraction away but what if...

Lan's jaw had somehow gone hard, if diamond could be said to further harden. 

Had Lan figured this out because he was sensing what Moiraine wanted to do? Was Moiraine feeling desire for him? Or affection that Lan wanted her to believe was physical?

"Baerlon." Lan repeated. "Respectful, efficient, out of her system, got it?" And then he walked away. 

Thom stared after him. Bloody burning ashes what was that flaming conversation?


End file.
